No Rest for the Wicked
by CrystallicSky
Summary: Jack sighed in irritation, glaring up at the dark ceiling as if it were the source of all his inconvenience. No, he thought bitterly, that would be the monks. Again. CHACK, ONESHOT


**No Rest for the Wicked**

**By: CrystallicSky**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Xiaolin Showdown or any of its characters, nor do I make any profit or attempt to with the writing of this or any of my other pieces.**

**Warnings: Bad language, sexual implications, slight gore, homosexuality, etc.**

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Jack sighed in irritation, glaring up at the dark ceiling as if it were the source of all his inconvenience.

No, he thought bitterly, _that_ would be the monks. Again.

Often, the Xiaolin goody-goodies were too rough with him, battling him as if he were one of their more powerful villains instead of the (genius intellect shy of being) normal human youth he was. Master Fung had been lecturing them about it a lot, lately, too, explaining to them the need to gauge their own strength in battle more appropriately. Of course, this was told to them in metaphor-form, but the message was nonetheless the same: 'draw your sword for an enemy, not an ant.'

Either way, it amounted to the suggestion that the monks tone it down; refrain from 'drawing their swords for an ant,' AKA, pulling out all the stops just to thwart little ol' Jack when they had _real_ enemies to use the best of their skills against.

Naturally, they hadn't listened and so here Jack was, bored out of his skull as he sat in the hospital. As it was, he stood to endure many _long_ weeks of recovery for his three broken ribs and fractured shin, but it could have been worse: the tsunami that'd hit him with enough force to essentially snap his leg in half had at least put out the fire-tornado the two Xiaolin lovebirds had worked together on before it could do too much damage.

Really, scorched clothes and a slight haircut via singeing was a lot better than broken bones _and_ a stay in the burn ward.

Now, normally, Jack would've been beaten up, the monks would receive a five-minute scolding for their behavior, and that would've been the end of it.

Perhaps it was because he'd been spending more time around Chase Young as the Heylin man's consort, or perhaps it was because he was sick of being a punching bag while his tormentors got off scot-free, but he didn't really feel like lying back and taking the abuse, again.

Like the evil genius he claimed to be and the callous business people that had (kind of) raised him, Jack decided a lawsuit was in order.

The Xiaolin were thoroughly shocked to be given word of their impending judicial summons in person…sort of. A video-conference through a Jackbot was close enough to it.

Jack took great pleasure in telling his enemies that he was taking out his pain and suffering on the entire temple, particularly enjoying their shock and anger at the alternative he offered to being sued: an extraneous sum of money that dirt-poor monks would be hard-pressed to afford.

Kimiko, smug in her belief that her wealthy upbringing and her businessman father afforded her knowledge Jack didn't have, had sneered. "Legal battles are _expensive,"_ she informed, "and they take _forever._ You'll be wasting tons of time and money on a lawsuit like this."

"And so will you," Jack responded coolly through the vid-phone. "In case you've forgotten, though, I'm _rich,_ and I've yet to hear about a judge who'd _force_ a bed-ridden man with several broken bones to attend every session of court. While I can afford a trial and won't have to be there for every day of it, you can't and you'll have to. As they don't say often enough," he grinned, "it'll hurt _you_ more than it hurts me."

"Well, we'll countersue!" Raimundo brashly declared. "You were trying to steal _our_ Shen Gong Wu! That's theft!"

"1) That Wu didn't belong to anyone," Jack pointed out, "that's why we were fighting over it. And, 2) where's your proof? I've got video to support my claims of you four beating me up viciously in front of your temple wearing the clothing that identifies you as Xiaolin monks. You're lucky you're not already in prison for 4-to-1 assault considering how blatant this evidence is. And what have you got on me other than your word?"

They said nothing in reply, only stared back at the screen.

"I thought so," Jack had said. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to order myself some crappy hospital food thanks to you. Oh, and please consider my offer to settle outside of court." Then, with a mock-pleasant smile, he'd ended the video conference, leaving the monks staring at a blank screen.

It had been possibly one of the coolest things he'd ever said, in Jack's own opinion. It was evil, cruel, manipulative, and everything he'd ever wanted to be. He knew he owed at least some of it to Chase's teaching, but he also knew a lot of his intimidation tactics and scheming this time was all _him._

Of course, he had very little intention of following through with his threat to sue the monks: Kimiko was right and it would be a lot of time and money wasted to actually enact a trial. In reality, Jack was probably just going to turn over his video-proof of the beating he'd been given (minus the supernatural parts) to the local authorities and the Xiaolin would suffer a major setback with their newest recruits stuck in jail for assault charges.

Unfortunately, no matter _what_ he did, it wouldn't change the fact that he was stuck in a goddamn hospital in the middle of the night, alone.

Being of a prestigious family was enough to secure Jack a private hospital room, which he was grateful for. After all, he doubted he'd want to share a space with some gross sick person hacking all over himself like the one he could hear next door. Still, he'd been here for at least a week and nobody had visited. Without any company but nurses who treated you with passing interest at best and a doctor who'd only occasionally stop in to see whether or not you'd flat-lined on his watch, things were getting a little lonely for Jack.

It was late, it was dark, and there was nobody around.

Again, Jack glared at the ceiling, using it as his outlet for a truly killer stare. Then, realizing that glaring at plaster would get him nowhere, he sighed, immediately wincing as his lungs painfully shifted a few of his broken ribs in the process. Considering that he could actually feel it, Jack came to the conclusion that the pain meds he'd been given were starting to wear off and wondered just when the machine he was hooked up to would dispense some more into him lest he develop pneumonia.

"This sucks."

No sooner than he'd said it to the empty room, the room became a little less empty. An overwhelmingly dark presence filled the shadowy room; practically smothering it. The springs of the hospital bed creaked ever so slightly as something settled at the foot of it just beside Jack's un-casted leg. Albinistic eyesight did not afford the best night-vision, and so the young man could make out little more than a figure sitting at the end of his bed.

Of course, Jack didn't need 20/20 vision to see the familiar golden eyes glowing at him in the darkness.

"Chase," he blandly greeted. "You know visiting hours are over, right?"

There was a soft snort of derision before the bed moved again, Chase making his way up the mattress like a jungle cat stalking its prey. His weight settled at Jack's side, just below the broken ribs.

"As if I care for anyone's rules and regulations but my own," the overlord declared sarcastically. _"Peasants_ must obey rules; royalty need not."

"Oh, so you're royalty, now?" Jack inquired.

"Yes," Chase decided. "I am."

"Well, alright, _your highness,"_ his consort said, putting unnecessary emphasis on the title, "I've got a question: where the hell have _you_ been these past couple of days?"

"Busy," the Heylin man noncommittally answered. He was reluctant to admit that he had been busy researching and crafting a potion of accelerated healing for his injured consort all this time. Lord knows what it would do to the youth's ego.

"Busy?" Jack pressed.

"Busy," Chase insisted.

Jack had been Chase's lover long enough to know when he wasn't going to budge on something and this was apparently one of those things. "Alright," he conceded, dropping the subject, "but while you've been 'busy,' I've been lying here like a dead fish, with nobody to talk to and hopped up on meds."

"And yet you seem so lucid," Chase commented.

"My buzz is wearing off."

Chase smiled and rested his head on Jack's stomach, careful of the surely-painful area further up. "I'm sorry I couldn't see you any earlier," he said.

Whatever irritation Jack might've felt at being by himself for so long was quickly forgotten and he placed a hand on the back of Chase's skull. "Ah, don't worry about it," he half-shrugged, "it's fine. I understand. So…what's up with the visit?"

"I need a reason to visit my own injured consort in the hospital?"

"Honestly? Yes," Jack said. "You're not the type to do anything without an ulterior motive."

"……Touché." Chase settled himself closer to his consort, making best use of Jack's soft, warm stomach as a pillow. "You see, I've gotten into the habit of sleeping with you in my bed. I find myself hard-pressed to do so without you present."

"Well, I'm hardly in fucking condition, don't you think?" said consort challenged.

"Obviously not," Chase sneered, looking the young man up and down. A casted leg, bruised and broken ribs: sex right now would be foolish. "I said 'sleeping with you,'" he corrected, "not 'fucking you.'"

"So…what?" Jack wondered. "You're just gonna…sleep here?"

"That had been my intention coming here, yes."

"What if one of the night staff comes in?"

"They won't," Chase declared confidently. He had made sure of that with the low-level spell he'd cast on the door of the room.

It was an obscuring sort of magic; one that would cause people passing by to be completely uninterested in the door or what was behind it. Unlike a vanishing spell that could be broken if somebody were to actually go up to the hidden door, an obscuring spell would have any hospital staff passing right by in complete disinterest.

There would be no unwanted visitors tonight.

If there was one thing Jack trusted implicitly, it was his lover's word. "If you say so," he conceded, relaxing back against the bed. His fingers began to tangle idly in the other man's hair, rubbing and petting like he was a kitten.

Despite himself, Chase practically purred at the sensation, settling more firmly beneath the luxurious stroking. Ah, how he'd _missed_ these sweetly saccharine displays of affection, done without any sort of prompting whatsoever!

Naturally, it was thoroughly annoying that he _had_ missed it; missed _Spicer._

The boy was _supposed_ to have been his consort and nothing more following his maturation and subsequent change from oddly-colored, mildly interesting child to interestingly-colored, sexy young man. Of course, with Jack, things were never as they _should_ be, and soon enough, the genius had convinced Chase to take him under his wing fully as an apprentice, to teach him everything he could about evil.

And now, it'd somehow come further and Chase was here in a filthy mortal hospital in the middle of the night, lying on a stiff and uncomfortable bed with itchy cotton sheets and for what? To have his hair stroked and to be beside his injured consort while the potion that would make him well faster was being prepared.

It was stupid. It was _insane_ for an overlord to act this way; to lose sleep over a _consort._

Yet, this was the reality of the situation and Chase Young was all out of sorts because Jack Spicer was physically unwell.

"Are you gonna be gone when I wake up?"

Chase's eyes flickered open and he stared upwards to his lover's face. Jack's eyes were closed, his face relaxed almost as in sleep. Chase knew better, of course: he could tell feigned neutrality when he saw it, especially with Jack's hand on his head. Whenever he lied or concealed something, the dragonlord had learned, Jack could give himself away with his twitchy hands, and the one threaded through his hair was spasming _ever_ so slightly.

Jack was trying to act as if he didn't care one way or the other whether Chase stayed with him or not.

"Do you want me to be?" he asked outright, _forcing_ Jack into a position of giving his honest opinion.

"……I…no," the youth quietly admitted. "I don't."

As Chase had suspected. Why would he have asked after his master's intentions if he hadn't been invested?

"Then, I won't," Chase decided, once more closing his eyes and resting himself upon his consort. "I'll wake you in the morning before I leave."

Jack smiled. "Thanks," he offered, truly grateful. That Chase had come to see him was heartwarming to the lonely young man. That he would _stay…_ Now, that was touching.

There was a soft beep from the machine beside the bed before a good dosage of painkiller was injected into Jack's IV. It wasn't long before the ache he'd been feeling near his lungs ebbed and the dark room began to swim in his vision.

_"There's_ the buzz," he murmured quietly to Chase. "I dunno what they got me on, but it's _good_ shit. I'm gonna sleep, now, if you don't mind."

Chase smirked. "I don't mind. Good night, Jack."

"Night, Chase," the youth sighed in response, nestling into his pillow.

Chase listened as within minutes, his consort's breathing evened out into slow, deep breaths. Pneumonia would not be getting him so long as he remained medicated enough to avoid shallow breathing.

Still awake, the warlord used the silence to ponder in, thinking just how strange this situation he'd gotten himself into was.

A consort…_his_ consort…was affecting him deeply to have caused all this. Jack had gotten himself injured, had made his overlord toil over a hot cauldron for days searching for a way to heal him quicker, _and_ he'd convinced him to stay in a loathsome place hours longer than he'd meant to.

What was Spicer that he could do these things to Chase? When was the last time he'd cared so deeply for a consort? Had he _ever_ cared so deeply for a consort before, for that matter?

Jack shifted slightly, regaining Chase's attention. Gloved fingers stroked delicately first over bruised white flesh and then the hard white cast on the left leg before his arm came back up to loop around slim hips.

Perhaps all this _was_ stupid. Perhaps it _was_ insane.

None of it changed the crystal clear fact emblazoned in Chase's mind: this was _exactly_ where he wanted to be right now, by Jack's side, and not even the expense of sleeping on a rock-hard mattress and scratchy sheets would change his mind.

Firm in his decision, Chase damned all consequences of growing too attached to a mere consort and joined his Jack in slumber.

**--**

**A/N: Just a quickie little oneshot I wrote because I had a dream similar to it and because the last thing I posted was back in March and it's, like, the end of April, now. XD**

**Thanks to Silvarbelle for proofreading! A second set of eyes is always appreciated to catch little flubs and goofs. :)**

**Anyways, thanks for reading, and I hope you liked the fic! :D**


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